


Unsettling

by extremelyperturbed



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Drama, F/M, Fire, Grisly ant death, Gruesome Monster Deaths, Monsters, Mystery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 07:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8195629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremelyperturbed/pseuds/extremelyperturbed
Summary: This is done in response to this kinkmeme request:  http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/21013.html?thread=53804309#t53804309"Pepper comes to the tower after not receiving calls from Tony while she's been away on a business trip, only to find he's not there. Who is there is the team, and none of them seem disturbed by Tony's mysterious disappearance. They calmly tell her he hasn't been around for 2 or 3 weeks and aren't the least bit alarmed. Pepper's alarmed but when she questions further she just receives calm answers, creepy smiles and creepy stares. It gives her the feeling that they've definitely done something to Tony, but rather than call up the cops, she decides to stay and investigate further, seeing if she can catch wind of what they've done to him. What she catches is their odd behavior and weird dialogue exchanges that point to Tony when they think she's not listening."  The rest of the prompt is at the link.





	1. Chapter 1

Pepper scowls as she gets up from her bed after getting back from two weeks in London and crashing from jet lag. It's really not like Tony not to call even if it's the kind of call that begins with "Oh, shit, my lab exploded!" or "I bought you some strawberries!" AND she had spent an hour at the airport, waiting for him to pick her up like he promised before she went on the trip.

After leaving him a message on his voicemail, she drives over to the Tower, wondering if he's just stuck in the lab and forgot that the world outside existed. She's irritated because he's the one who had been pushing for them to get back together. This does nothing to further his case.

She takes the elevator up and steps off at the common area, only to see Natasha and Steve talking. "Hello, I just got back from my convention."

"Oh, hello, Pepper," said Steve.

"Hello," said Natasha.

"Do you know where Tony is?" said Pepper. "I left him a voicemail and he hasn't called back." 

"He's been on a mission for the past three weeks," said Steve.

"It's super secret," said Natasha.

It's not what they say but how they say it that twigs Pepper's bullshit detector. "Could you tell him to call me once he's back?"

"Of course."

Pepper pulls out a large bag of jelly babies from her hand bag. She frankly finds them disgusting but Tony is a Doctor Who fan and loves them. "I got these for him. I don't care for them, but he begged me to get him some." She hands them to Natasha.

"Of course," said Natasha.

Pepper walks out and once she's in the car, she decides to call Rhodey. Rhodey will tell me what the fuck is going on, she thought.

***

"How was your trip?" said Rhodey. They were at her favorite soup and salad place, sitting outside. She's happy to be out in the sun especially since the last day she was in London, there was a downpour. No wonder, the country's so green, she thought.

"It was great," she said. "I went to the Tower but Tony wasn't there."

"He's on a mission."

Pepper keeps waiting for the inevitable addition of "with Clint" or "with Fury" or basically anyone. It doesn't happen. "Did you let him go by himself? You know that's an awful idea."

"He's fine."

Pepper puts her lips into a straight line. "OK, I think I know what happened. An experiment went wrong and he's the size of a beer can or he's turned some hideous color. I'm used to that so why not just tell me so I can do my little huffing and puffing, get over it and then try to help him get back to normal. He probably told you not to tell me because it would only worry me. I already worry about him, so spill."

"I am telling you everything is fine." Rhodey keeps smiling the same smile he used to greet her with. And it's getting more plastic by the second.

"Here's your spinach salad with green goddess dressing," said the waitress.

While Rhodey enjoys his steak salad with bacon bits, Pepper ends up playing with her food. 

Pepper goes home that night and stares at her phone which refuses to ring. Come on, Pepper, think, think!

She knows something is wrong but everything works against her in this case. There's no point in calling the cops. Tony's eccentric, an adult and it seems all the Avengers are willing to say that he's gone on a mission and that it's super secret. She will look like she's a nutty girlfriend who doesn't understand the responsibilities of her man. But THAT is not who she is. They had code words to use with each other when he was going to have to go under the radar for a while. He did not use it before she left.

Who can I trust? I need to talk to someone who's outside of the Avengers. Maria Hill? Happy? Who?

I'll try to talk to Jarvis when I can't be overheard. I know where Tony's lab is so I'll see if he's down there.

***

She meets Happy at his apartment. Happy is fortunately behaving quite normally, which is a relief. Unfortunately, he has absolutely no information.

Happy says, "Yeah, it is odd but I don't know anything. I'm not as close to him as you are. Maybe he's in rehab and he's too embarrassed to admit it?"

"I'm no stranger to Tony in rehab," said Pepper. "I'm the one who drove his ass to rehab the last time he needed it."

"They're his friends, right."

"I thought so."

"Even if the cops took it seriously, they have way more firepower."

"I want you to do me a favor."

"What?"

"I'm going to try to find Tony. If I disappear, don't search for me but report both me and Tony missing. It's harder to explain both of us being gone."

"I've got an idea. Wear a wire or something so you can show people how weird they're acting. It's not like they're going to pat you down. But honestly . . . I'd rather you not go look for him. I'm getting kind of scared."

"I have to."

***

The next day, she walks into the Tower and tries to go to Tony's private floor only to find the elevator refuses to go there. "JARVIS, why can't I go to Tony's floor?"

"The floor is off-limits temporarily."

"Explain temporarily . . . Where is Tony?"

"Tony is busy."

Pepper swore in her head in a way that she would never do out loud. She pushed the button for the floor where the lab and was also denied access. "JARVIS, what is going on?"

"The floor is currently under renovation."

She then pushes the button for the common area floor. She walks out and is profoundly disturbed to see Clint and Natasha eating from a bowl full of jelly babies. Tony loved those so much, he even swatted HER hand away when she once reached to grab a handful. He might let them sample a couple each but not give most of her bag away for casual munching.

They see her and smile, bits of candy in their teeth. "Hi," says Clint.

"Hi," said Pepper. "How is the candy?"

"It's candy," said Clint.

"Is there something you need?" said Natasha.

Pepper puts on her most innocent smile. "It sounds crazy but I'd like to stay here until Tony comes back. I want to discuss kicking up our relationship a notch."

At that moment, she sees Bruce carrying a large tray holding pounds of what appears to be raw meat. He looks surprised to see her. "What is that for?" said Pepper.

"It's for steak tartare," said Bruce.

"That much?"

"It's for tonight's dinner," he said before walking out of the room.

"That looks like enough for a pack of wolves," Pepper said.

Natasha gets up. "Let me show you to your room."

Pepper decides not to argue over this.

When paella instead of steak tartare was served, Bruce said that he had tripped and all the meat had fallen on the ground. However, there was no reason given why the meat had been taken out of the kitchen in the first place.

***

During the night, she thinks she hears her name being spoken by a man's voice, but distorted as if it was on recording tape that had been played hundreds of times and the speed of the playback changing at random. Pepper gets up from bed and puts on her slippers. She picks up her tablet computer from her bag. She slowly eases the door open and takes a peek. The dim lighting of the hall lets her see something familiar. It's Tony's gold and red Iron suit and it makes her heart fill with relief until she realizes that the proportions are all wrong. The shoulders are too wide and . . . She puts her tablet computer into record video mode and pushes start. She sees the suit raise his hand and blast something she can't see. There's a sound of a wet slap to the floor and gurgling mixed with hissing. "You need to go back. I said go back!"  
Pepper recognizes the voice and realizes it's Steve's voice, not Tony's. Whatever he's aiming his hand at seems to be doing what he's saying. She doesn't hear any steps, more like something being dragged away. She then hears Natasha say, "Steve, he knows Pepper is here. It's really agitating him."

Pepper is suddenly afraid of being caught so she slides back into her room and pretends to be asleep.

***

She considers herself fortunate that she is the CEO because any unforeseen absence would raise immediate questions. She walks out of there without having breakfast. Who can I ask? I'll try asking the staff, she thought. Surely, they must have seen something. If only I could get them alone . . .

In the meantime, she asks Happy to have lunch with her. She desperately needs someone to reassure her. She felt proud of herself that she had gotten clear if somewhat jumpy video and not totally botched it.  
She shows Happy the video as they sit in her private office with sandwiches she had ordered from the cafeteria even though she didn't have much of an appetite. "It is definitely suspicious," he said.

"But what do I do with it?"

Happy thinks for a few seconds. "There are three ways that this could turn out."

"Three, not two?"

"No, three. Now, this is sounding more and more like one of those horror movies I watch. You might solve the mystery, rescue your man and live happily ever after. That's the hero route. You might find out what's going on but end up either killed or in the same horrible situation as the guy you're trying to save. That's the FUBAR route."

"What's the third route?"

"I call it the reddit route. You never find out what happened, you escape with your life and wits mostly intact and you spend your whole life wondering what the fuck."

"You don't want me to try to save him, do you?"

Happy sighs. "You showed me Captain America wearing an Iron suit and you told me Rhodey is in on it. You can't go against them unless you not only have a suit yourself but a whole freaking army of suits to go after him. Hell, from what you told me Bruce seems in on it and you might end up destroying the whole building if you fight him when he's Hulked out."

"If something bad is being done to Tony then I'm OK with the Tower being destroyed," she said. "There is one problem. Tony kept all the designs as his private property in the Tower. A lot of the technicians in the company worked on his suits but putting it all together?"

"Mercenaries?"

"Too unreliable and they'll probably take a huge wad of money then ditch me at the first ass kicking."

Happy slaps his temples with both his hands. "My brain is empty. I have no more ideas for you."

"You've been awesome."

"Do you have to go back?"

"For now. How can I explain just not coming back?"

"I will make a stink if you don't come out again!"

"Good."

***

She sits in the gym watching the other Avengers spar. She would actually enjoy it if it didn't remind how good they were at fighting and disabling opponents. She has an unfortunate mental image of Natasha breaking her neck with a mere twist. She wonders what all the great detectives would do if they were in her position. What would Sherlock Holmes do?

Coming here disguised as someone else would fail. Inviting a "guest" over sounds better but too many guests would be suspicious. Perhaps a convention or some kind of education lecture? Having that many people would give her cover to look around.

She decides not to talk to the staff because they kept disappearing the second she walks into the room. There's always some errand they have to run RIGHT NOW.

As it was Friday, she stays up until well into the morning hoping that she would hear another clue but there was nothing but silence.

The next morning, she walks down the hall from her room and realizes that a huge portrait of Tony that he had commissioned is missing. She manages to hold her tongue then notices that in a nearby trashcan there are fragments of it, some with scorch marks. She walks by because she doesn't want to be seen having seen it. However, it makes her clench her jaw and grind her teeth.

She usually doesn't eat breakfast as she never gets much of an appetite until after nine in the morning but she feels like a cup of coffee. She stops when she hears Natasha and Clint talking. Natasha said, "Do you think you can fit into his clothes?"

"Maybe, why?"

"It might be necessary. Why don't you try one of his best suits today? I'm pretty sure we still have some of his cologne and styling products."

Pepper does not want to interrupt them so she quietly walks away, keeping herself from having a meltdown right then and there. Fuck these people, she thinks, fuck them. I don't need to be Sherlock Holmes. I need to be Alexander the Great. I need to be Genghis Khan. This is war and I am a general.

***

"I hope you know why you are all here? And I am very sorry to take you away from your families and other obligations on a Sunday," said Pepper in a conference room at the headquarters of Stark Industries.   
The technicians who had helped Tony build his suits were sitting at the conference. One of them raised his hand. "We're making more suits?" said Kevin.

Pepper smiled. "Yes, we're making a dozen of them."

"Just give us the plans and we'll have them out in a month," said Emily.

"I don't have the plans. I thought you had the plans for the parts you made."

The techs look at each other in confusion. "We do but after we put them together, Tony would download the programming himself," said Don.

"Create a substitute operating code." 

"Why can't we just copy the one from Tony's suit or that of Rhodey's?" said Don.

"Neither are available. And I'd like this in two weeks."

"We can't go that fast! The quality control needs to make sure the suit doesn't explode or fall out of the sky!" yells Emily. 

"This is an emergency. All the staff and money you need will be made available. If you can't make a dozen, then at least guarantee you can make one."

***

Pepper has just talked to lawyers over whether or not she can evict all the Avengers from the Tower. Tony had basically made her the building supervisor while he was gone. She was the one people called to call about bills, repairs and other things. Of course, it would cause a huge scandal to pick them out of there but maybe a huge scandal was what was called for. 

"I think I have a partial solution to your problem," said Happy as he walks in. "I happen to know some friends in low places. While they would need to get paid, they're do-gooders, not soldiers of fortune."

"I'm listening," said Pepper. 

"I know a guy named Scott Lang."

"And . . . I know you didn't just hire someone off the street because I know you're smarter than that."

"He's got a suit created by Dr. Hank Pym. It is a suit that can shrink him so he can sneak in unnoticed. Also, he has a pretty good crew behind him."

"Introduce me to them."

Happy smiled. "They're actually parked outside."

***

"So that's the situation," said Pepper to the men who were sitting in three separate chairs in front of her desk. She had shown the video she had taken while she was inside and recounted all the bizarre behavior of the people around him.

Scott said, "Man, that looks really creepy as fuck. No wonder you're freaking out."

"If he died during a mission, I could take it. Or if he was imprisoned overseas . . . well, I've been there before. But this . . . It actually makes me more scared. What could take a blast from his suit? And why did Clint talk about wearing his clothes and using his stuff?"

"We might have an answer to that?" said Happy as he opens the door. "Turn on the TV. Channel Five."

Pepper turns on the TV in her office and stares. There is Tony standing in between Natasha and Steve, making a speech refuting rumors of hermitdom. She narrows her eyes and claps in a hard and sarcastic manner. "Oh, bravo," she said. She suddenly understands what the hell Clint and Natasha were plotting before she left the Tower.

"What do you mean?" said Luis.

"They dolled Clint up to look like Tony. Steve can't do it because his body type is all wrong. Natasha's good at disguise but not that good," said Pepper. 

"How can you be so sure it's not Tony?" said Kurt.

"First of all, those are his clothes but he would never use that combination of tie and suit. Second, he's doing a shitty job of sounding like Tony Stark. Sure, the voice sounds like him but he's flat and there's no energy or showmanship." The more she thought about it, the closer she got to having a rage stroke.

"He does sound really tired," said Dave. 

"What now?" said Happy. "And why?"

"I'll answer the why first. They did this so nobody official will help me. Also, it makes it harder to kick them out if Tony the owner says they can stay. I doubt they want me to stay there any longer so they created a 'Tony' they can use to keep me from returning."


	2. Chapter 2

"And what now?" said Happy.

Pepper began massaging her temples. "I asked the technicians of my company to make a suit, plural if possible. And Scott, you said that you could sneak in using Pym's suit."

Scott said, "Yes, I'll need to hitch a ride on your shoulder but just get me in and I'll check out Tony's private rooms before going down to the laboratory. You said you had a map of the air circulation vents in the building." 

"Yes, I do. Once we know what we're dealing with then we can formulate a proper plan," said Pepper.

"Yes, my general," said Happy. As the other men in the room side eyed him, Happy said, "What?"

***

"Pepper, I hate to tell you this but the Tower is off-limits to you," said Natasha as soon as Pepper set foot into the Tower's lobby. 

Just what I thought you would say, Pepper thought to herself. She put on a sweet smile, anyway, and said, "I came here to see Tony."

"Tony said that he feels that he really needs to go on a break."

"Seriously. He told you this and sent you to tell me instead of facing me."

"Yes. I know it's shitty for me to tell you this instead of him doing this face to face but . . ." Natasha shrugged. 

Pepper put her head down and put her hand on Natasha's shoulder as if leaning on her for support. "Oh, God, you are killing me." 

"If it makes you feel better, he still wants you to be CEO."

Pepper stood up and let go of Natasha's shoulder. She saw that Scott had made it across and relaxed slightly. "Of course, profits are higher than they have ever been. But if he ever wants to talk to me ever again, he's going to have to come over in person."

She stomped out to make her tantrum appear convincing. She drove to Happy's apartment, hopped into the white van where everybody else was and they drove to a point near the Tower where they could receive signals from Scott.

"All right, where are you now, Scott?"

"I've shrunk myself even smaller to keep from attracting the hot redhead's attention and I'm on her shoulder. She's going up to the tenth floor which you told me is Tony's floor."

"That's right," said Pepper. She turns to the rest of the crew. "You might want to record this."

Kurt quickly switches on the program so everything from that point on is recorded. 

Scott's helmet-cam shows Natasha walking into Tony's bedroom. There is Tony sitting in front of a mirror. He does not turn around to greet Natasha. 

"I just told Pepper to go away," said Natasha.

"How did she take it?"

"About as well as can be expected. She was angry but seemed to be interested in freezing him out in retaliation."

"Good."

Pepper, Happy and the crew grimace when they see Tony dig his fingernails into his neck and pull off his face, then see that underneath the mask is Clint.

"I told you so!" said Pepper. She knew they had some doubts about her sanity prior to the reveal but could only feel a sort of grim satisfaction. 

"Whoa," said Scott. 

Clint then pulls off his necktie and Pepper sees a device embedded in it. "I hope we don't have to do that again," said Clint in his normal voice.

"I hope we don't either," said Natasha.

Luis excitedly says, "Pepper, you should show this. That'll prove you're telling the truth."

"No," said Pepper. "It's not enough. They'll just use the same excuse the military does. National security, national security, national security. Scott, I want you to go to his office, which is right next to the bedroom." 

Scott jumps off Natasha, runs across the ground and underneath the door leading to Tony's home office. 

He hops up on the desk and looks at the books, most of which are antique volumes in foreign languages. 

"Get a close look at the titles," said Pepper. She pulled out the laptop from her briefcase, turned it on and began looking up what Scott was showing her. None of these are books she recognizes. Whatever Tony was up to, he didn't clue her in on this. 

He looks at one of the books open on the desk. "Why is there a pentagram on one of the pages?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Tony, what have you been messing with?" said Pepper. She looks at the translation of the book titles. "Those books . . . They're grimoires, textbooks of magics. One of the books on the shelf is The Seal of Solomon and the one on the table is the Necronomicon."

"I thought Tony was a techie," said Luis.

"He is but he's also a reckless asshole who loves dabbling in things he shouldn't be touching," said Pepper. "Scott, do you see any notes there."

"No but the Necronomicon is open to a page about imprisoning demons."

Pepper groaned. "I think I know what he did."

"You do?" said Dave.

Pepper pinches the bridge of her nose. "I don't want to say anything until Scott checks out the lab." She had a bad feeling she's right, though.

Scott jumps off the table and Luis gives him the directions of how to safely descend to the laboratory basement. 

Scott slowly pads through the air vent that led to the laboratory. "All right. I'm hearing some strange noises. I can't see the entire thing but I'm seeing something that looks like a huge spider but a weird brown and kind of slimy . . ."

Something struck the air vent and Scott jumps back then runs to get some distance. Whatever it is begins banging on it, bending the metal. Scott continues to get some distance away from it. It finally pushes its way through to reveal itself to be a tentacle which ends in a beak which snaps at him and makes the most ungodly clacking and whistling sounds while oozing slime. Scott jumps even further back, as a spiky tongue flicks out of its mouth. Fortunately, it doesn't seem able to see him but seems like it's tasting the air, much like a snake.

"You're recording this, right?" said Pepper.

"Hell, yeah, I'm recording this fucked up shit" says Kurt, sounding like he's about to mess his pants.

They hear voices. Steve said, "What has him so agitated? Pepper's not here."

"Why?" said Luis.

"Why what?" said Pepper.

"Why the hell do you make it agitated?"

"I don't know. Tell Scott to get out of there. I think I've seen enough."

As Scott made his way quickly away from the air vent and back to the lobby, Dave said, "Any theories?"

"I don't have any proof but I can guess. Now the Nazis are accused of being interested in occult matters because people didn't want to believe regular God-fearing people were capable of what they did but it's really Hydra that was interested in exploring black magic and occult forces. As much as Tony didn't like his dad, he did end up interested in the history of World War II. Once Tony found out that Hydra used to dabble in magic, I can imagine him trying to find counter measures and testing it out."

"And something went wrong," said Luis.

"I don't think that tentacle is a sign of something right," said Pepper. Her cell phone began ringing. "Hello?"

"We have a prototype of a suit built for you but it would be much easier if you just wanted the gloves," said Emily. 

"Gloves?"

"Yeah, the parts for the hands are pretty easy to use and program. Just point and shoot. They're basically arc reactors with a trigger."

"How about you make a couple dozen gloves instead if multiple suits are too hard? Meanwhile, concentrate on improving the one suit you do have."

"Phew, that's great news."

"Can we get some chlorine trifluoride?"

"Yeah, why? It's hard as hell to handle though."

"I have a sudden interest in it," said Pepper. "Keep me updated. Bye."

"Bye."

Once Scott got in the van, he said, "What now?"

Pepper said, "The original job was just getting in and finding out what was going on. And you did that. Are you interested in another job? It's a bit more dangerous but I don't mind paying more. It does mean that you'll be facing that thing again though I will be upgrading everybody's firepower."

"We're listening," said Scott.

Luis says, "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

"You're quoting Aliens?" said Scott.

"Ripley's the best," said Luis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Seal of Solomon is a riff on this other book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testament_of_Solomon The Necronomicon is of course from H. P. Lovecraft.


	4. Chapter 4

"Before I explain why I'm asking for another meeting, I need to show you something," said Pepper to her team of technicians in the conference room.

"Why is that man standing in the middle of the table?" said Don right before Scott shrank before their eyes.

"Whooooaaaaa!" they yelled then murmured among themselves as a foot-high Scott ran around the table and waved to show that he was indeed a tiny man and not a projection or a toy. 

"This is someone I hired to do some surveillance on my behalf. I've got something to show everybody here. I couldn't tell you before because I didn't have corroborating evidence or witnesses ," said Pepper. She shows them the video she caught in the middle of the night and then the video of Scott exploring the air vent only to be nearly eaten, causing many of them to squawk and scream. 

Don raises his hand.

"Yes, Don," said Pepper. 

"Please tell me this is something from Industrial Light and Magic," he said, referring to the special effects firm.

"No," said Happy. "Scott here was the guy wearing the helmet cam and I saw the video feed at the same time as Pepper. The Tower has something weird in the basement."

"Why the hell haven't the Avengers killed it?" Kevin said. 

Pepper said, "Maybe they tried and failed so they're trying to contain it."

"Suppose it escapes?" said Emily.

"That's why we're making all this. Suppose it escapes behind their back. We may be this city's last line of defense. It didn't die from a blast from one of Tony's gloves. Now you can argue that Steve couldn't use full blast mode because he didn't want to blow a hole in the wall but still I find it scary that it was resistant at such a close range."

"Why hasn't Tony done something about this?" said Alice. 

"I don't know. I haven't been able to reach him," said Pepper. 

"But he was on TV," said Kevin.

"I went to the Tower and Natasha denied me entrance. That's when Scott got me this video." She showed them the clip of what Scott recorded after Pepper left the Tower.

An "ohhhhhh" went through the group of technicians as they saw Clint take off his Tony mask. 

"This is serious business," said Kevin.

"Why haven't you told the New York Times or CNN?" said Alice.

Pepper said, "I haven't told them because then the Avengers would make that place into a bunker and we'll never be able to get in or get anybody out," said Pepper. "Besides, I can't plan until I know exactly how much firepower we have. What have you made so far?"

"We made a dozen gloves so far and one suit. The gloves work fine . . ." said Don.

"And the suit . . ."

"It mostly works . . ."

"Mostly?"

"If you push it at maximum output, it can sustain that for ten minutes before overheating and . . . possibly exploding."

"I can work with that if I have to," said Pepper. "Keep tinkering, though." 

"Are you really Tony in disguise?' said Emily. "Because that's something he'd totally say."

Pepper scowled at that. Right now, she didn't see it as exactly a compliment. "How about the chlorine trifluoride?"

"Are you sure you want to use it?" said Alice, sounds extremely doubtful.

"What's wrong with chlorine trifluoride?" said Happy.

"It's poisonous, explodes in contact with water, sets asbestos on fire, corrodes almost everything it touches, and if used in a flame thrower, it can reach more than two thousand Celsius."

"Why do you want this stuff, Pepper?" said Happy, sounding appalled.

"I want something guaranteed to kill this thing. If a high energy blast can't make a dent in it, we're going to use chemical warfare."

"Who's using the gloves?" said Emily. 

"I'm using the suit but I plan to give a pair to Happy and a pair each to the surveillance crew. If you would like a glove for yourself in case it does break out, I authorize you to make one for yourself."

"Um, Pepper," said Alice.

"Yes, Alice." 

"I don't mind fighting whatever was trying to eat him but I . . . don't want to fire at the Avengers."

The room got really quiet. 

Pepper considers her words carefully before saying, "All I want you to do is protect yourself and other civilians. If there's going to be any fighting with them going on, leave it to me. So, why don't you show me the suit?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/07/chlorine-trifluoride-aka-chemical-can-set-fire-glass/ is an article about this very real and very nasty substance, chlorine trifluoride.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAhiqGZCwNQ is a video about chlorine trifluoride. Nazis wanted to use it but found it too hard to handle.


	5. Chapter 5

"Where are we going?" said Scott as he, his crew and the technicians were being driven in corporate vans down a private road to an isolated area a couple hours outside the city.

"We're going to a shooting range," said Pepper.

"A shooting range?"

"In a matter of speaking, yes, we have to practice actually using these things. Most of the technicians have no military background nor have they ever had any peripheral experience being near superheroes. The gloves are new to you so I want you to try them out. Me, I have to check out the suit. These aren't things you can do in the middle of downtown. We need to make sure the blasts don't actually hit anybody." 

"I love all this crazy shit you have," said Luis. "It's like living inside a Looney Tunes cartoon."

"You better hope we're way better than the Acme company," said Pepper. 

Once they were there, the techs walked out of the vans and put on their gloves. 

Pepper said, "OK, after you turn on the targeting software, make sure to turn the power to medium. I'm assuming that whatever we're targeting will be at fairly close range so we don't want to blow up the surrounding area if we don't have to." She pointed at the variety of items hundreds of meters away, ranging from tanks to scarecrows to beat up cars. 

The techs were terrible at first but soon were shooting fairly accurately at their intended targets. 

"Woohoo," said Dave as he nails a tank. 

After an hour, Pepper said, "It looks like everybody has the basics down. Now, I'm going to try on the suit so I need everybody to put away their gloves." She did not want to get hit by an overly enthusiastic tech.

The suit quickly assembles around her and the operating system turns on. "Looks good so far."

She turns on the boosters in her feet and the acceleration is smooth as she rose several stories into the sky. She quickly circles the shooting ranging and lands without a glitch. She fires several shots. "It seems to be working well but it's a little warm."

"That's the overheating problem, we're working on," said Don.

"I've got an idea," said Emily.

"I'm ready to hear any and all ideas," said Pepper.

"We set the Tower on fire."

"Why?"

"I'm sure the Avengers and the staff will evacuate if the fire is hot enough. But how are they going to move that damn thing from the basement? If they leave it, it gets killed and that's one problem solved. If it tries to escape, we sneak in and go after it while the Tower is on fire. Also I talked to some of the other techs. We may know why they're coddling that thing."

"Go on," said Pepper. 

"Rhodey is in on it, right? They're trying to weaponize the damn thing. It's the typical military industrial thing to do." 

"First, I'd rather not set a huge part of downtown on fire. Also, the Tower is very fire resistant."

"How about we use the chlorine trifluoride?"

"The kind of fire you're thinking of will attract dozens of firefighters and onlookers. And they're liable to use water which will just make the fire worse. I don't want to create the very situation we're trying to avoid."

"Damn."

"Keep thinking though. I just prefer a plan with less pyrotechnics."

"Almost all my ideas involve pyrotechnics. How about we set a glove on overload?"

"Try something that doesn't resemble a Michael Bay movie."

Emily sighed.

"All the Avengers except Thor are in there. There should be a mission that will take some of them away. That would be the best time to go in. I currently have surveillance keeping track of who's left the Tower and who hasn't. Also, I called on some rare book collectors and independent book stores to get copies of the books Tony had but I've been told that most grimoires are worthless forgeries. I was wondering if you could coat the suit in a thin layer of silver. A lot of fairy tales have monsters hating silver. It's a shot in the dark but . . ."

"That's pretty easy," said Emily. "Everything else seems to be hard."

"If you need something that might kill that thing, I can get a hold of some liquid nitrogen . . ." said Scott.

"What do you usually do with liquid nitrogen?" said Pepper.

"I crack . . . things with it. Like science demonstrations."

Pepper did not feel convinced. 

***

"Today was pretty fun," said Happy. After three straight days of practice, he had turned out to be pretty good at using the glove. After dropping everybody else off, he and Pepper were sitting in his apartment, each having a glass of white wine. 

"It's not supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be scary. I wish I could hire people with more fighting experience but I don't want to end up with someone liable to try to steal whatever the hell it is."

"Most groups don't even like regular hard to handle biological weapons liable to backfire on them. I don't see much of a market for Cthulhu," said Happy. 

"I just want to say thank you."

"What for?"

"You were the first one who believed me with the least amount of proof. You helped get Scott on board and with his help, I showed them why they needed to make the suit. And most of all, you helped make me feel I wasn't completely insane for trying to do something about this."

Happy turned slightly pink. "Let me refill your glass."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to make the shooting range underground because I worried that the amount of blasting would be 1) detectable by earthquake monitors and 2) end up collapsing the building on top of them. After all, the hand blaster can blow up a tank. 
> 
> I'll just say Emily is going to have a lot of ideas. I won't say they'll be good ideas, just that there will be a lot of them.
> 
> Biological weapons are frowned on because too often the weapon can be turned on the wielder. Poison gas can be pushed by wind the wrong way. As for disease, it's hard to keep it from breaking out among your own troops especially in close proximity to the target.


	6. Chapter 6

Pepper's cell phone rings. She puts it to her ear. "Excellent," she says.

"What happened?" said Happy.

"Rhodey, Bruce and Sam just left American airspace and are on their way to Okinawa because a kaiju has risen from the Pacific Ocean to attack one of the American military bases there," she said, referring to the occasional monster that seemed to enjoy attacking Japan on occasion. 

"That just leaves Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye we have to deal with in the Tower."

Pepper frowns. "Tony would've totally gone to Okinawa. He loves studying kaiju and by studying, I mean blasting them to bits after taking samples. This is the best time to go and get some answers." 

Before Happy could respond, they hear a large crash. Happy quickly put his glove on while Pepper opens the suitcase that has her suit. 

The wall of their room explodes in a cloud of drywall and splinters and they blindly fire at what's coming their way. 

After a few seconds of silence, they look at the hole in their room and realize that something huge had smashed its way through the glass doors leading out to the balcony then smashed through the wall of the room they were in. They slowly make their way to what's left of the balcony and look down at the ground twenty stories down. They look at where they expect to see whatever they shot, either bloodied or in mechanical pieces in front of the building.

Instead, they see something bigger than a tank glaring up at them. Its many eyes swimming in its moist flesh reflect light towards them. Reminiscent of a cuttlefish, its body swiftly pulses colors like black, red and a dingy yellow. Despite being wordless, it radiates anger. It leans next to the building and begins an upward climb, slapping parts of itself to the building, clinging effortlessly to it like a gecko. 

"Why isn't it dead? We hit it full force and my apartment is twenty stories up," said Happy.

Pepper remembers how her presence seemed to agitate it when she was in the Tower. "I think it's coming after me specifically. What I'm going to do is try to draw it away and towards the company. Emily, Alice and Don are working on that chlorine trifluoride flame thrower there and said they were ready to do some testing. I want you to tell everybody to meet me there and bring their gear. Right now, go hide in the stairwell. If you don't hear anything in a few minutes, go down and drive there."

Pepper floats in the air and shoots a low power shot at it to attract its attention away from Happy. 

The thing growls at her and scrambles up the building faster than she anticipated. She gains height and begins flying towards the empty area near Stark Industries. She would go to the shooting range except even with some tinkering, she doesn't think she has much more than twenty minutes, not enough time to get there, and that's only if she doesn't go into full battle mode. 

At first, she's worried that she might accidentally leave it behind by flying too fast for it but that particular worry evaporates when she notices that instead of tentacles, it extrudes legs that help it hop easily from the roof of one building to the other and if anything, instead of slowing down, it seems to be managing to keep up with her. She starts feeling more like a bug being pursued by a very hungry and determined frog instead of someone leading a monster to a trap.

She manages to make it to the top of a building in the Stark Industries complex and has to take off most of her suit so it can vent out the excess heat. The tech had told her it takes a full ninety seconds for the vent cycle but she's not sure she has those ninety seconds. She detaches the gloves from the suit, which are still warm but still usable. The only good thing about where she is that there are no nearby buildings near the complex from whose roof it can leap to where she currently is. If it wants her, it's going to have to climb. She pulls out a pair of mini-binoculars from her pocket and puts them to her eyes. 

The thing is at the edge of company grounds and she knows somehow that it loathes her from the core of its unfathomable being. While it seems to have tolerated the inhabitants of the Tower, it seems to have a special hatred for her. All of its eyes have migrated to the front of what appears to be its head and are aimed at her location and what emerges are multiple legs so it can run to where she is. 

However, its special hatred of her blinds it to Emily, Don and Alice sneaking up on it. Emily is holding the weapon while the other two are holding canisters of fuel. They stop more than a hundred yards from it. Emily pulls the trigger.

The world seems to be on fire as the back part of it erupts into flames. Sound erupts from the being as if a steam train could scream in agony. It detaches itself from the part of itself on fire and jumps forward fifty feet and spins around to look at who has attacked it. 

Alice and Don screams in terror while Emily yells, "Mother of God!"

The skin of the part that's not on fire began to ripple and bubble and what emerges causes everybody to gasp. It is the top half of Tony Stark, wet and unconscious.

"Oh, shit that's Stark!" said Don. 

"Tony?" screamed Pepper. 

The thing waves the unconscious man at Pepper as if to taunt her, hides him back in its flesh and two rows of smiling, sharp teeth suddenly appear all around the being's midriff that then is absorbed by its flesh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgDE2DOICuc shows how cuttlefish can change their body color. 
> 
> http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/how-octopuses-and-squids-change-color "Male Caribbean reef squid (Sepioteuthis sepioidea) turn red to attract females and white to repel other males—and can even split the coloration of their bodies down the middle to attract a female on one side and repel a male on the other!"
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeSuQm7KfaE explains how geckos climb and how this particular thing climbs as well.
> 
> Yes, the thing can change shape.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please read the new tags before starting this chapter.

"So basically it's using Stark as a human shield," said Emily. 

The thing slowly backs away from the team with the gun. It even seems to do a beauty queen wave with one of its legs as it did so. 

Emily starts to walk forward after it. Alice grabbed her arm. "What are you doing?"

"Chlorine trifluoride works. We need to finish the job."

"It's got Tony."

"It's going to get away if we don't . . ."

Don said, "Guys, you need to look at the part of it that's burning . . ."

Emily turns to the burning part of the creature and wants to vomit inside her hazard suit. The skin of the abandoned body part had split and it seems like things are crawling away from it. At first, she thought it was just a result of a chemical reaction, much like the "black snake" fireworks where lighting a small nub created a yard long black decomposition resembling a snake. Then she realized that they actually were things crawling away from it. They vaguely resembled babies if the babies were made out of burning leather and ash, had claws, fangs and had multiple tails instead of legs and arms. 

Emily's eyes narrows. "Shit, I think that was an egg sac." She tried not to wonder if they were merely clones of the egg layer or had been fathered by the thing's hostage. She doused the things with the chemical causing a chorus of high-pitched gurgling screams. 

"Shut up! Shut up!" screams Alice. 

In the meantime, Pepper's suit finishes its venting process and the suit quickly arranges itself around her. It's just in time because the creature had already climbed halfway up the building she was standing on. She flies off and lands near where Emily and her team are busy monitoring the fire from a safer distance, away from the toxic byproducts of the chemical reaction.

She gets a message from Happy inside her suit. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. I just had to let the suit vent. Where's everybody else?"

"I'm just a few minutes from there. Scott and his team are nearly there. A few of the others are just behind them. The rest live farther away."

Emily takes a canister from Alice and methodically connects it to the flame thrower. The slightest screw-up could easily cause a reaction inside the canister, causing explosive results. Fortunately, the canister is put into place and they all relax. 

Emily starts to pat her side.

"Is something wrong?" said Pepper.

"I can't take out my gun without taking off my hazard suit," said Emily.

"A gun's not going to bother that thing. It fell twenty stories without a scratch," said Pepper, frowning. Even as a last ditch effort, it would be utterly useless.

"It's not for the monster, it's for Tony."

"What did you say?" said Pepper.

"It's not for the monster . . ."

"No, we're not shooting Tony."

Emily shrugs. "I thought it would be a less painful death than being burned alive."

Pepper looks at the burning mass that has finally stopped expelling attempted escapees. "We're not burning the part that has Tony."

Emily looked at her coolly. "I'm going to be honest with you. I value my own life and that of my friends more than I value Tony Stark's. If it comes at me, I'm going to light it up. Especially since Scott and his team aren't here."

She's about to protest but realizes that the techs signed up to kill a monster that was a danger to the public but did not sign up for a rescue mission that was several orders harder and more complicated. "I'll keep it away from you. Just don't fire if you don't have to. If Scott and I fail and it's going back to the city . . . Then do what you can."

Don said, "Pepper?"

"Yes, Don," said Pepper as she kept an eye on the monster skittering down the building in the distance.

"Why haven't the Avengers come here, yet? I mean, it escaped the Tower. Shouldn't they know?"

Pepper thought to herself that Don had raised a very good point. Why weren't they here?

Emily said, "Maybe they got eaten."

"Oh, God," said Alice.

"It's not running towards us," said Don. It had settled itself well outside the reach of the flame thrower. 

"It's not a dumb animal," said Pepper. "It's thinking. I'm going to try to see if it understands our speech." She put her helmet's speaker to megaphone mode. "What is it that you want? If you surrender Tony to us, we will do our best to send you home."

The thing was quiet and still before it finally said in a distorted fashion her name then a long wheezing sound that sounded like it came from a badly tuned organ. 

It took a few seconds but Pepper realized it was laughing at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the following chemical reactions are what Emily had in mind before she realized those things were alive.
> 
> https://youtu.be/8jNG8w0lJ4U?t=2m29s is one version of the reaction. Another reaction that I had in mind is called the Pharoah's Snake: https://youtu.be/2dhHpHOgrUI
> 
> Yeah, those eggs were a blend of Tony and the monster. No pain involved but definitely without his permission. 
> 
> I'm going to try to finish it before Halloween.


	8. Chapter 8

"That didn't work," said Alice.

"It understood, it just didn't care," said Emily. 

"Sorry, we're late!"

Pepper looked over her shoulder. "Scott?" She saw him in his suit along with his team. 

"So, what's been going down?" said Scott.

"Pepper won't let me kill it because it's holding Tony hostage," said Emily, sounding grumpy.

"What?" said Scott.

Pepper said, "That thing has Tony hidden inside it. The flame thrower works but if she shoots it, it'll kill Tony along with . . ."

"Tony is still alive inside that?"

"He seemed to be breathing, anyway . . ." said Pepper. Pepper uses the communication network in her suit to talk to the technician who lived the farthest away from the company. "Kevin?"

"This is Bonnie. We decided to carpool. Kevin's busy driving the car and we're on the freeway."

"If you're near the exit to the Tower, would you mind swinging by there? I just want to know what condition it's in. Is there a huge hole next to it? It is on fire? I want to know how it escaped and if there were any casualties."

"Kevin, take that next exit. Pepper wants us to check something out."

"Call me back when you get there BUT do not go inside. I don't know what's in there and I don't want you to get trapped. Just swing by and come here."

"Bye," said Bonnie before hanging up. 

"I got an idea," said Scott. "I can control ants with my suit."

"Unless the monster is deathly allergic to ants, I don't see how that helps us," said Pepper.

Scott disappears then in a twinkle, he reappears suddenly on top of a giant ant that's the same size as the monster.

"OK, I'm very impressed," said Pepper.

The techs nod and clap in approval. 

Scott slides off and the giant ant runs forward towards the monster. 

The monster does not attempt to flee. Instead, its body shows a strange pattern of blue light swirling on its dark flesh. Once the ant comes within range, two tentacles tipped with a sharp spike erupts from the monster's body and pierces the ant's eyes before retracting. The ant blindly attempts to bite its attacker only to have the monster suddenly jump on its back. The monster's body erupts a dozen tentacles which end in sharp giant pincers that easily slice through the insect's exoskeleton. Pepper, Scott and the rest can only watch as the monster slices off the ant's legs then decapitates it. All this was done in fifteen seconds.

As the monster sat on top of its vanquished foe and truly seems to relish the leg segments as much as people love crunchy bread sticks, Don said, "What kind of world creates a species like that? It must be hell."

Pepper gets a call back from Bonnie. "Hello?"

Crunch, crunch, crunch went the ant leg as it went into the monster's mouth.

"There's no huge hole that we can see so maybe it tunneled farther away before leaving. The Tower looks intact as far as we can tell. The lights are still on. Oh, wait, Kevin says he sees someone climbing down one side of the Tower."

"It's someone, not something?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell who it is?"

"Not really. You want us to wait until he gets closer to the ground?"

"No, absolutely not, get over here as quickly as possible." 

"Turn around Alice, you don't want to barf inside the suit," said Emily.

"Dear God," said Don. "It's eating the brain."

"That poor thing," wept Alice.

A few techs come driving by. Ben hops out and says, "Did we miss any . . . Holy shit, it killed a kaiju!" 

"It's wrapping the ant's spinal cord around it like a . . . scarf," said Tina.

Pepper had the brief mental image of her broken body being worn like a medal around it like a trophy. What do I do now? She thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unlike so many other horror movies, people actually follow instructions. 
> 
> As for Don's assertion, I'm reminded of the Tribble episode of Star Trek the Original Series, where people wonder what kind of planet would create a prey animal that needed to reproduce so much and so often.
> 
> There is an insect that wears the carcasses of its victims though the monster's reasons for doing so are different. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-insect-uses-its-victims-carcasses-as-camouflage-83656246/?no-ist


	9. Chapter 9

Tina and Ben impulsively start firing at the monster, who leaps from the remains of the ant and skillfully avoids getting hit by their blasts by jumping around in randomly.

"Stop! Stop! You're going to hit Tony," yells Pepper.

"You named it Tony?" said Tina. "Why?"

"I didn't name it Tony. Tony's inside of it!" yelled Pepper.

Tina and Ben stop firing. Tina said, "We didn't nail it, not even once."

Pepper acknowledges to herself this is true. While everybody is good at shooting things that are stationary or moving quickly in a linear direction, nobody expected something that could jump around like a giant hyper frog. Even if they did nail it, they would have to dial it up to maximum intensity for it to do more than stun the creature and that increased the chance of killing both the creature and its unwilling passenger.

"I've got an idea," said Emily.

"Go on," said Pepper, sure that she wasn't going to like it.

"OK, you went up to Natasha and tiny Scott jumped on her, right?"

"Yes."

"That thing really seems to want to go after you so, you pretend to do a suicide attack by yourself. You just do this to get tiny Scott close enough to hop on top of it."

"So far, I'm intrigued." So far, Emily's idea hasn't gone all Michael Bay . . . yet. 

"Tiny Scott plants a glove set on overload, but miniaturized so we don't destroy the entire complex. He hops back on you, you bug out of there and the monster goes kablam."

Pepper is about to argue that means Tony goes kablam as well but then thinks she can modify this plan. "Scott, do you have any liquid nitrogen with you?"

"I have a few gallons."

Pepper has the suit tweak its sensors so it can use ground penetrating radar to penetrate the monster's body. She smiles when her guess turns out to be correct. "Can you shrink yourself again?"

"Absolutely."

Pepper turns to the rest of the techs and turns on her suit's communication's network. "OK, everybody who's got a glove, I want you to form a perimeter. Scott and I will be the only ones doing offense. All I want you to do is protect yourself and do your best to keep it from escaping the area. Put your glove on moderate for now. If Scott and I are . . . defeated, then turn your glove on maximum and back up Emily so she can take it down with the flame thrower but only after . . . Not before."

"And what are we two doing?" said Scott.

"I'm going to bait that thing with the one thing it really wants. It doesn't seem to really want to attack anybody else but me. I'm going to go towards it and while I'm busy fighting it, it'll ignore micro-sized you hopping on top of it, becoming normal size and dumping a huge amount of liquid nitrogen on it. Using the suit's radar, I figured out that Tony is mostly contained in the hindmost section. I want you to aim the nitrogen towards the front."

"I'm really against this plan!" said Happy. 

"Happy?" Pepper see him running towards them from his car. 

"I just arrived. I was pulled over and I didn't want to get shot for going on a high speed chase and leading TV helicopters here so I had to listen to the lecture by the officer and smile and everything. That's not the point. I heard everything and I'm against this. We have enough fire power to get this thing without you risking your life like this!"

"I'm choosing to risk my life and Scott seems on board with helping. Nobody else has to help me but I can't live with myself if I don't try to get him out of there in one piece."

"Well, I don't think Tony would be too happy if you got eaten trying to save him."

"If he didn't want me saving his ass, he shouldn't have summoned this thing! I'm doing this, Happy, you can't talk me out of it!" Pepper glares at her friend, who she knows only wants her to stop behaving like the man who drives her crazy. 

Scott goes into his van to get his liquid nitrogen. He comes back out. "Ready?"

"Yeah," says Pepper. 

Pepper kneels down. Scott shrinks himself and hops on top of her shoulder. Pepper waits for the techs to form a perimeter like they're supposed to and starts running towards the creature. 

The creature notices and immediately sends out several tentacles to try to grab and stab her. She blasts the tentacles which are only replaced by other tentacles. 

"Go near the dead ant, I'll try to leap off you, hop unto the dead ant and then try to get on the monster," says Scott.

"Gotcha," she says. Scott jumps off. 

Her split second distraction, however, makes it easy for the creature to slam her to the ground with a tentacle for each limb. A giant pincer appears at the end of another tentacle and tries to cut through the armor of her neck. Fortunately, the suit withstands the pressure and she blasts apart the tentacle with the pincer. A mouth appears, big, open and full of sharp teeth. 

Scott appears and throws the entire contents of his container into the mouth. The creature accidentally swallows it before screaming, boiling nitrogen vapor pouring from its mouth. The creature loses its grasp on Pepper and Pepper gets to her feet and blasts the creature right where Scott had thrown the liquid and parts of its innards break like shattered glass then melt. 

Scott shrinks and gets on Pepper and Pepper flies straight up to gain height. The creature keeps screaming and vomiting a torrent of black liquid before shuddering, expelling Tony from its massive wound, and then going still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think a good CEO should be willing to listen to people they don't always agree with, take what good a mixed bag idea has and then add on to it.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar actually exists. Not sure if it could actually do what I'm claiming it is but it can detect underground structures from above ground. Also if the Iron Suit in canon doesn't have it, it really should. 
> 
> https://youtu.be/IIoSmhxwt90?t=1m30s shows what liquid nitrogen can do to chicken meat. While leidenfrost effect can keep it from hurting you when it comes to touching it very briefly, ingesting it can be lethal. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19870668 This is why instead of merely dumping it on the creature where it could simply slough off the damaged tissue and escape some of the ill effects from the nitrogen having boiled off before it could really freeze its flesh into the air, I went with making sure it went inside the creature.


	10. Chapter 10

Pepper shoots the monster twice with a moderate shot to make sure it's not pretending to be dead but the carcass merely slides away from the force of the blasts on its slick body fluid. She kneels down and touches Tony, who is still warm to the touch. "Tony?" She shakes him because he doesn't appear to be breathing. 

He suddenly turns his head and expels a torrent of clear liquid from his lungs before he starts breathing but he remains unconscious. 

"Do we call 911?" said Scott.

"There's actually an onsite hospital. Tony used to have a lot of things go haywire so we figured that we'd save ourselves a trip," said Pepper. 

"Do we go home now?" said Alice.

"Not yet," said Pepper. "I just need to make sure Tony is well enough to move somewhere safe before I think it's OK for everybody to leave. I'm still worried about the people coming from the Tower."

"Oh," said Don.

"You've all done a really good job . . ." said Pepper. That was the truth. They had done great work with the suit and the weapons and they hadn't gotten eaten or killed. "I really appreciate you standing by me and Tony. I'll be sure to tell him everything you guys have done." 

Pepper carries Tony and Scott walks with her to the hospital. "Is he going to be OK?" said Scott.

"He looks a bit thin but he's not missing anything that I can tell," said Pepper. She hoped the thing hadn't messed with Tony's brain.

"You don't look so happy."

"I'll be happier once he gets a head to toe examination and he starts wagging his tongue like he always does. It's just . . . I'm just so tired."

"Want me to carry him?"

"No, the suit's doing all the work, really." Pepper didn't know why she was crying. She should be elated. 

They walked into the emergency section of the clinic and two emergency room doctors ran and began pushing him into an examination room. Pepper and Scott gave them as much information as they could and shook their heads when they didn't have an answer. 

Eventually, Pepper sat down on a plastic chair in the waiting room. She took off her suit and let it go on an early vent cycle. She saw a vending machine offering hot beverages and bought herself and Scott two coffees. It wasn't the best coffee but it was hot and caffeinated and that was what counted at the moment. 

"Why don't you take a nap? I'll wake you up if they hear anything," said Scott after taking a couple sips.

"I'm too keyed up to close my eyes. Besides the second I close my eyes, something's bound to happen," said Pepper. The communications unit in her helmet began blinking. "See what I mean?" She put the helmet on. "Hello?"

"Captain America showed up," said Tina. "He looks pretty pissy." 

"Keep him there."

"Emily told him to stay where he was or she'd see if she could make vibranium melt."

The last thing Pepper wanted to deal was a barbecued Steve Rogers on company property. "I'll be right there and tell Emily not to light him up."

"Uh, oh."

"What do you mean?"

"Kevin accidentally lost control of the car due to all that slick monster blood and he hit Captain America."

"Oh, my God," said Pepper.

"Captain America's OK. He did a tumble and got right back up. He's like someone from Cirque du Soleil."

"I'll be right there." Pepper turned to Scott. "I really need to go . . ."

Pepper put on her suit since it had finished its venting cycle and flew back outside to see all the techs pointing their weapons at Steve. Well, except Kevin who is breathing in and out of an airsickness bag to stop his hyperventilating and Bonnie rubbing circles on his back, urging him not to pass out.

"So, Steve, what brings you out here?" she says with a big fake smile. 

"I think you know . . ." Steve gasps as he sees the remains of the monster next to the remains of the giant ant. "What happened? You have no idea what you've done."

"Yeah, we kicked its ass and rescued Tony," said Ben. 

"Oh, my God, shut up Ben," said Tina, giving him an elbow in the ribs. "Why don't you tell him your Social Security number, too?" 

Pepper raises her hand. "Everything's just dandy. Why don't you leave?" She had really wanted to throw that in Steve's face for such a long time.

"I want to see Tony," said Steve. "You are going to show me where he is."

"I'm his emergency contact. I am his power of attorney when it comes to medical treatment. You can go fuck yourself with that goddamn shield because I don't have to listen to another bunch of lies and bullshit!" said Pepper. 

"STEVE ROGERS, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING THREATENING PEPPER?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be the last one. It explains some of the lingering questions.


	11. Chapter 11

Everybody turns around to see Scott running towards them while pushing an angry Tony Stark in a wheelchair. 

"What is he doing out of bed!" yelled Pepper.

"He woke up and began yelling your name every ten seconds. This was the only way he'd calm down."

The techs immediately form a perimeter around Tony without being asked. 

"Listen to me, Steve. Go home. It's dead. I know you're confused. I'm fine now. Pepper's not the enemy. They're not the enemy but they're not going to wait forever for you to leave. Go home now!" Tony starts off calm but starts to sound more and more nervous as he rattles on. 

Pepper is about to order everybody to fire at Steve when Steve looks really confused but starts walking away. Everybody sighs in relief. 

"What the fuck?" said Scott.

Everybody looks at Tony. Tony sighs, "I think I can explain almost everything or at least give you a working theory." 

***

Outside on company grounds, the remains of the ant and the monster were burning from a blast of the chlorine trifluoride gun. The fire is watched for a while to make sure that nothing crawls from the innards of the creature but fortunately, it just continues to burn. 

"Pepper?" said Tony. He sat up in his bed in the hospital room. "Are you all right? I was really scared that . . ."

"I'm fine," said Pepper. "I wasn't the one stuck inside that thing. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw Scott roll you out, though."

Scott, his crew, Happy and a handful of the techs were in the hospital room, listening. Most of the other techs were in nearby rooms, crashing on beds and cots from a crazy night of fear and terror. 

"I know I owe everybody an explanation," said Tony. 

"I need to know that's the only critter we have to worry about. This is the end of it right?" said Happy.

Tony nodded. "Yeah, that's the only one. What do you know so far?"

Pepper said, "You were researching what Hydra had been doing with magic. Everybody in the Tower was acting weird and you were missing. That's basically all we knew."

"While you were away, Steve and Natasha went on a mission to look at an old Hydra base that looked totally trashed from the inside. There were shattered skeletons all over the place. They found some grimoires and notebooks in a vault that they sent back to me to look at. Hydra had been obsessed with the occult. I got curious and wanted to see what was so important about them that they were treated like top secret stuff and treasure. One of the spells involved summoning an all powerful beast. I really did take precautions but I wasn't expecting that . . ."

"What exactly is it, precisely?" said Scott.

"While I was inside that thing, it ended up sharing a lot of its thoughts with me. It calls creatures like itself Mon. It lives on a planet that orbits a red star and its night sky has no stars. The planet is full of these creatures."

The news alarms almost everybody in the room. "A planet full of them? They're not coming here, are they?" said Happy. 

Alice said, "Emily, why are you taking off your suit?"

"It's hot in here," she said.

"No, I managed to slam the portal shut but only after this one jumped through. They don't really have any concept of space travel because they never thought there was anywhere else to go. The sky is completely empty at night. There's not even a moon."

"How can it do the things it does?" says Pepper.

"Its memories say that long ago before it was hatched, there was something its ancestors call The Long Winter with Black Rain. If I'm right, these things were created as biological fighting weapons that could genetically engineer itself to become better fighters. The Long Winter must have been a nuclear winter with the Black Rain being radioactive fallout falling from the sky. To repair themselves, they began exchanging DNA and slowly became a cohesive species. The people who created them were basically sent to the Stone Age and stayed there."

"Why did it want to kill me so much?"

"Male Mons are much smaller and travel more extensively. If a male Mon strikes a female Mon's fancy, it tries to impress it and agree to mating before absorbing and merging it into its body. 

"So it thought of you as a male Mon?" 

"Yeah. When I was stuck inside it, I kept refusing over and over again to fully bond with it. All I could do was think about how much I wanted to see you again, to keep myself sane and not lose myself to it. Unfortunately, it battles to the death any rivals to its chosen male Mon . . ."

"And it saw me as its rival."

Tony shivers. "It thought that if it tore you apart and ate you in front of me, it would break my spirit and I would give up. It also thought that as leader of the Stark techs, it would break their spirits too and make them more likely to serve it like its former masters do back on its home planet. But I knew that if I gave into it, it would probably go after you anyway." 

Pepper put her face in her hands. "No wonder it was so persistent."

"Why didn't the Avengers tell her about this thing?" said Scott. "It would have saved us a lot of shit."

"The reason everybody's been acting so weird is that it can produce pheromones to make its former masters . . . more compliant. It hasn't quite gotten the hang of creating them for humans but between holding me as a hostage and pumping the air full of those chemicals, it's no wonder they've been acting weird as hell. It should wear off. Steve did go away. If he hadn't, I would've told you guys to blast him unconscious."

Kevin said, "Why the hell was Captain America climbing outside the Tower?"

"I'm not entirely sure. The creature must have managed to pick my brain so it knew how to lock them in their rooms so it could leave. Steve must've busted a window to get out." Tony sighed. "Everything's going to be OK. I'll destroy all the books and my notes and completely . . ."

"Everything's not OK." Emily stood up, holding a gun and aiming it at Tony. 

"Emily, what are you doing?" screams Alice. 

"Have you been listening to him? He put the whole world in danger. And he's acting like all he has to do is say 'Oops, my bad!' That thing had a huge egg sac that we set on fire before most of you got here. We might get killed next time!"

"Put that thing down," said Scott. "Jail is not a place you want to go. I know because I actually spent years in there. You have every right to be pissed off and scared but we nailed that thing and we're going to make sure there's no way this can happen again."

"And believe this, if he ever touches a grimoire again, I'll be the one shooting him," said Pepper, trying to ease her way between the gun and Tony. She still had the suit on and it would be bulletproof even with the power off.

"For God's sake, put down that gun!" yells Alice.

Tony said, "You're right that I fucked up big time but no, I don't consider this a small mistake. That thing nearly absorbed me, put you and your coworkers in a situation you should never have had to deal with, mind controlled my friends and nearly killed the woman I love. There's no way in hell I will ever repeat that mistake ever again. Happy, Pepper and Scott will make sure I destroy everything. I'm also going to OK all of you keeping the gloves."

Emily frowns. "Why?"

"Because if that's what it takes to make you feel safe with my continued existence then I'm on board with that. Now, please put the gun away."

Kevin said, "Emily, don't kill him. Come on, we rescued him out of that thing. We're all heroes. You kill him, you take that away from us."

"You trust this guy?" said Emily.

"It's not a matter of trust," said Alice, cringing. "I don't want to see anybody killed."

"You can't kill people based on what they might do in the future. Put down the gun and I'll spring for pizza," said Don. "Come on . . . just put it away. Orange is not your color."

Emily finally puts her gun away. "You get stuck in a monster again, I'm pressing the trigger."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Tony.

The other techs basically push Emily out of the room before she changes her mind. Pepper logs into the hospital's surveillance camera and makes sure that they drive off company grounds with her.

"I didn't expect that," said Scott.

"I should have," said Pepper. She made a mental note to make sure everybody receives some counseling. 

"Me and the guys will be in the next room if you need us. You two probably need some time alone," said Scott before he led his crew out. "We'll explain what went down to anybody who's awake."

"I'm going to go out, get some sleep and tell my landlord that the Avengers and Stark Industries will pay for the giant hole in my apartment," said Happy. "Pepper?"

"Yes, Happy."

"See you later." He turns and walks away.

After everybody leaves the room, Tony says, "I . . . I don't want to be alone right now. But if you want to go somewhere else . . ."

Pepper sits down next to him on the bed and gives him a poke in the arm, which makes him yelp. "Who do you think I've been doing all this for? I put on this Silver Power Ranger outfit that keeps alternating between working and trying to cook me alive while fighting off your alien stalker. With Happy's help, I manage to engage the services of a superhero for hire and jolly some of our technicians to go way outside their comfort zone for you! You think you're so smart but sometimes I wonder what is in between your ears . . ." She starts to cry.

"Yeah, my brain space is full of paste but the one smart thing I've ever done is fall in love with you." He wraps his arms around her and kisses her several times before they lean against each other on the bed. 

"There's something terrible I need to tell you."

"What?"

"Nat and Clint ate all your jelly babies."

"All of them? Those bastards!"

Pepper had to laugh at that. 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit I was really tempted to write a gonzo "Rocks fall, everybody dies" type ending where stuff oozes out of Steve's eye sockets and mouth and Tony isn't quite Tony any more, like have his head run around on giant spider legs while hissing. 
> 
> I was thinking of quite a few animals when constructing a Mon. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150313-the-toughest-animals-on-earth They are extremely hardy little things that can survive outer space, radiation, dehydration, etc. They're weirdly cute to me but may not be to everybody's taste.
> 
> https://www.wired.com/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-anglerfish/ This talks about how the male anglerfish fuses with the female fish. The fish are truly hideous so you might want to skip this. "Once the male closes in, he bites onto the female, usually her belly, and their tissues fuse together to permanently join the pair in incredibly unholy matrimony. The male’s eyes and fins atrophy away, and here he will live out the rest of his life nourished by her blood, still breathing with his own gills and, importantly, still producing sperm."
> 
> https://youtu.be/LS-VPyLaJFM is a nice video about red dwarf stars, the very long-lived star. 
> 
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2002/05/treacherous-wasps-turn-ant-against-ant "The natural world abounds with trickery. Take for instance the large blue butterfly Maculinea rebeli: Its caterpillars adopt chemical camouflage to manipulate red ants into feeding, grooming, and protecting them. But the caterpillars aren't the only ones to play the ants for fools, a new study reveals. A wasp, invading ant nests to parasitize the parasitic caterpillars inside, avoids ant attacks by deploying chemicals that provoke the ants into attacking one another." Mind control is a terrifying fact of life, especially among insects.


End file.
